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Topic: Boley 4L (Read 25726 times)

Beautiful piece of quality engineering. Considering it only cost the same a new 320lb Chinese 9x20, it was a steal. It is a 9x18 and weighs 650kg (1433lb). It is on the optional heavier gL37,2 cast stand. The bed ways are easily as wide as the center height, and the saddle length is about 50% the bed length. The spindle speed range is 71-1800 rpm in 12 steps, and I will probably run it off a VFD which will increase the range further. The headstock looks identical to the 5LZ which went to 3550rpm standard. The spindle runs smooth as silk.

There is one decent chip out of the bed (about where the cable is lying in the photo) , but otherwise the general condition seems really good. Paint is original, and there is only very light rust on a few surfaces. The test cuts I did gave the impression that the thing could turn a tenth off krytonite.

There is no obvious thinning/wear of the saddle or cross slide leadscrew threads, and little backlash. Everything was a bit dry, but I cleaned up the bed and put some lube on it and it runs like silk. I'll order some proper way and spindle oil off ebay for it.

Both crank and lever tail stocks, and the fixed and travelling steadies are with it. No other chucks or collets. It supposedly has a weird M39x3.5- 55° threaded nose. I'll have to get a 4 jaw, and will probably cast a face plate and ER32 collet chuck. But I'll also be keeping an eye out for W23 358E collets on Ebay.

This model doesn't have a thread cutting gearbox. It is designed with the leadscrew from swarf under the bed under the bed. Feeding and threading are both with change wheels. Only the two change wheels currently fitted (50/55) are with it. This gives a very fine feed. The rest are lost. I will probably CNC it, as that will be cheaper and easier than tracking down a set of change wheels, and I have had lots of fun with my CNC's 7x12.

Don't take possession of the house for another few weeks, so the seller kindly agreed to store it for me through into January.

I was surprised that it didn't sell sooner. Small machines are normally sought after here, as no one has space. It was advertised for about 8 weeks in the local version of Craiglist. Since we closed on a house last week, I can finally get a real lathe.

Looks like a lathe to me. And it looks greatly improved to the original.

I have pretty similar, least when it comes to top slide and toolpost! Mine does not have steppers and invertter - yet.

I'm not considering CNC without ballscrews, ballslides and central lube, but electronic feed would be very high on my list. l am not yet very conviced on ELS, I'm having hard time "getting it" how it actually could make an accurate thread with one pulse per spindle revolution and without servo.

If I CNC the 4L, it will be a reversable change (as it is on the 7x12). I am not sure if that is the path I take with the 4L though. I just talked to my dad and he has a spare set of change gears he was given a few years ago. No idea what machine they are off, but if the size is near enough, and bores are small enough to be bored out, then I might end up adapting that set (if he brings them over from NZ in summer).

The 4L is a very simple machine. This makes it ideal for CNC, as all the wonderful mechanically tricky features which make something like a 5LZ or 1EE so cool, becomme redundant once a computor spins the wheels.

Remove the 4L lead screw, and install a ball screw mounted on bearing blocks and a nut carrier which pick up the existing mount holes. Same for the the cross slide. Top slide is replaced by a tool riser block. Two inductive sensor, one the spindle cog for rpm, and another on a 1/rev feature for indexing. The T-Slot for sliding stops on the bed will be excellent for mounting limit and home switches. The motor is a standard, industrial, flanged motor. It is only .75/.9k. I am not sure if the place I bought has 3ph in the cellar. If not I will probably need a 240 3PH motor, and will run it off a 1PH -> 3PH VFD like I have my current lathe.

Pekka, 1/rev indexing worked fine under T-CNC. Since I swapped to LinuxCNC (EMC2) I only have the index signal set up to provide RPM indication and havent done any threading.

On a CNC lathe, you can cut the thread with dozens of light cuts, and at much higher spindle speeds than you would comfortably do manually, so the spindle doesn't really load up or slow down enough to make a significant effect on thread accuracy (obvious it depends on the desired accuracy). I have cut two M40x1.5 (er32 collet nut) threads on 7x12. It was just on the wrong side of the machines capacity, and turned out ugly on one, and worked on the other.

I think you only need a Px oiling system if you use the mchine for hours each day. I just squirt oil on the ways and screws regularly (like every time I use it). Given the cost of 7x replacement parts, it is probably easier just to replacing things if they start getting worn.

Pekka, 1/rev indexing worked fine under T-CNC. Since I swapped to LinuxCNC (EMC2) I only have the index signal set up to provide RPM indication and havent done any threading.

On a CNC lathe, you can cut the thread with dozens of light cuts, and at much higher spindle speeds than you would comfortably do manually, so the spindle doesn't really load up or slow down enough to make a significant effect on thread accuracy (obvious it depends on the desired accuracy). I have cut two M40x1.5 (er32 collet nut) threads on 7x12. It was just on the wrong side of the machines capacity, and turned out ugly on one, and worked on the other.

I think you only need a Px oiling system if you use the mchine for hours each day. I just squirt oil on the ways and screws regularly (like every time I use it). Given the cost of 7x replacement parts, it is probably easier just to replacing things if they start getting worn.

Looks like you have sorted it out I was considering this method for semiautomatic machining (sort of ELS) with a bunch of other guys who were whole lot more electronically versed, but when we "clocked" the spindle, leacrews etc, we noticed that:* normal capacitor run AC motor is absolutely out of questions if only one pulse per spindle revolution is used. 3phase AC, more "flywheel" and stiff belt drive was an improvement.* Takes some time to stabilize the speed, ELS needs delays to wait until spindle is "at speed" and some preset distance to "build speed for leadscrew".* Cutting does not generate constant force, forces seem to be cyclicTherefore threading seem to be heading to direction of servodrive for a spindle and/or greater pulse count on spindle and more processing power. We did regognized that with tweaking it could be doable, but not as predictable as mechanical solution.

Would love to get some info on your workking system:* AC-motor/inverter rating, spindle speed used for threading* Threading dimenssions tested succesfully and failed ones (they are best to find linmits!)* Inertia masses are hard, but rought chuck/belt wheel dimessions would help* Lead screw pitch/ratio/stepper motor and current you run it would give great insight

I have a 0.55 KW (3/4hp), 3phase, 240V 2 pole motor, driven from a 0.55 kw VFD at between 10 and 70 Hz. The reduction is a bit under 3:1 using THD 9mm belt.

The leadscrew is a 5/8 x .200" rolled ball screw, driven from a 1:2 belt reduction from a modern Keling NEMA 23 stepper.I have not done much threading, and never to a standard in the sense of three wire measurement or gage. I just turn and try.

My lowest spindle speed is 240 rpm (10 hz). At this speed the motor has bugger all torque, so for the 40mm x 1.5 thread you are in an ugly corner between too little depth of cut causing rubbing, and too DOC causing stalling, and too much spindle speed causes excessive tool wear over the multiple passes required.

Basically any smaller diameters work fine, as you up the spindle rpm, providing increased torque.

I use a 3" three jaw, 4" four jaw and a home made ER32 collet chusk. The worst case was turning the collet chucks own thread, as there was bugger all mass. It is a pretty horrible excuse for a thread. I am suprised it fulfills its function at all. Unfortunately, I can't show you this thread right now, as the colet chuck has a job in it which I don't want to disturb.

The second one is on a mill spindle I have been working (on and off) on making. It has a pretty nice thread except for two nasty chips out of the it.This size thread is really beyond the capacity of this machine. It took a far bit of experimenting to get it done.

Is there a good reason why the taper roller bearing is the way round it is?

It's more usual to be the other way round so that thermal expansion in the spindle reduces the preload on the bearings - I think that with your design the preload may increase thus putting up the temp and increasing the preload etc. etc.

I have struggled to understand how one pulse per rev can work with threading but reading that you need plenty of oomph so that the spindle doesn't slow under cutting conditions helps me to see how it works.

I have also been collecting collets. Got a partial set of imperial collets from Ebay.co.uk, and a partial set of metrics from a guy here in Vienna, who also sold me a Spin indexer for the 358E / W23 / A12 size 4 collets Boleys use. There is a guy on Ebay Germany selling single collets, so I have ordered the main ones I am missing. I'm going to mix the imperial and metric collets up on a single collet board, as the 1/64" spacing gives 0.4mm steps, and I have all the small ones in imperial. 0.4, 0.8, 1.2mm... makes for a nice set. I'll post Pictures once I have finished the collet board.

There was a excessive play in the carriage drive, as in 180° of handle rotation. The drive handle has an idler to change rotation directions, and the roll pin to fix it to it's shaft was severed in three pieces. I doubt the roll pin was original. This lathe was what is referred to in German as a Fettopfer, a grease victim. It was designed for all these mechanisms to be regularly oiled.

Made a new pin for it which has cut the play dramatically. Once I have the backing plate for my Bison 125mm four jaw independant chuck, I will Mount that housing, bore out the slogged out shaft bore and bush it.

As there was no change wheels with the lathe when I got it, I hae not been able to cut threads. I missed out on a set of Change wheels which failed to sell on Ebay.CO.UK. The seller had sold them cheap to an Artist who made an installation out of them

Since I have already CNC'd one lathe, I decided to do an electronic leadscrew on the Boley for now. I am mostly enjoying having a Manual lathe again, so I am not sure if I will CNC it completly.

First thing needed is a spindle Encoder. Since I'll be using LinuxCNC, it need a 1/rev indexing puls, plus a more/rev encoder signal. There are lots of ways to acheive this, but I tend to choose the most complicated. In this case I have made a steel 40 count encoder disk, with one long slot and fitted it to the existing fine feed drive pulley.

I have started making the Z Axis drive motor mount. A Nema 34 stepper will be mounted. I don't like irreversable modifications, so the mount will be the same as the existing Boley fine advance drive, which clamps onto a shaft feature concentric to the leadscrew.

Pretty painful process milling the 7mm recess for the motor on the Deckel G1L. I can only cut 0.5mm per pass.

I wonder what the Austrian Ö-Norm material number is for that shiny steel which Rob Wilson uses.

Since I haven't received the backing plate for my Bison yet, I had to mount the 100mm four jaw in the 115mm three jaw.Mark

Well, that first moto mount undercoating was crap, so I sanded it back and redid it.

Then I needed to make up an adaptor plate to mount my 4 jaw to my only chuck back plate. The slug of steel was a drop form Fixmetal. It is too thick, but I figured it would be waste to turn 70% into swarf, since I can reuse it for something else once I get the new backplates which are ordered.

The parts I order fro Mädler.de showed up (within two days of ordering - nice), so I bored out the timing belt cogs, and shaped a keyway in the one which goes on the leadscrew. Since my keyway cutter is 3mm I had to do it in two passes.

Although I am installing the ELS for threading, I am enjoying manual turning, so I would like to tighten up theexcessive play in the saddle drive.

I bought some sintered bronze bushes from Maedler.de, figuring I just need to bore out and bush the handle casting on the apron. The Shaft is also worn 0.25mm, so I'll have to turn that back and sleeve it as well. When I looked at the shaft on the apron, with the pinion which meshes with the rack, it also has 04mm play, so I'll need to pull the apron, bush that hole, sleeve it's shaft, and the add a second busing into the handle casting.

I'll order 11mm and 14mm reamers for this job, and get on with something else in the mean time.

The spindle nipped up on the lathe. I think I'd better tear it down and check that it is not scoring the journal, and probably scrape the plain bearing back in before I use it any more. My lathe had been lubed with grease (except the headstock nose bearing) when I got it, so I need to make sure that the rear bearings are also correctly lubed.

It is obvious from the hammer and punch marks on the nuts that someone has been here before, who didn't bother with the finer points of maintenance like using the correct tool for the job. Lucky I bought a set of C spanners a few months ago.

The tear down starts on the LH end. Their is a fine thread on the spindle which mounts a split nut as a backstop for the thrust bearing preload nuts to act on. This nut has a conical surface.

On my lathe, their was also a conical washer, but that was located on the other side of the thrust adjuster. I guess that was incorrect assembly.

I need to release the nut on in the gearbox behind the nose bearing, but it has a sheet metal cover.

To get that cover out of the way, it looks like I need to remove the three screws on the bull gear, and shift it to the left. There is also a grub screw on the spacer which has to come out.

I pulled the spindle. Turns out the grubscrew which acts as an anti-rotation stop for the collets, was loose. It had backed out a bit and machine a groove in the plain bearing. I estimate it is at least 1/10mm deep. I hope there is enough meat there to scrape the bearing back to full contact.

I've now pulled the three rear bearings. Once the dummy rear bearing arrives, I can start scraping the front bearing back in. I'll have to grind the steel shim in the top of the bronze bearing which controls it's diameter. with the current shim, and the bearing nut tight, the spindle goes all the way into the bearing till it hits the shoulder.

I pulled the steel spacer from the slot in the spindle bearing. This roughly sets the bearing bore diameter, then therefore roughly sets the bearing clearance. The fine adjustment is through spindle axial location. Someone has been there before, and broken one end off it. It is currently 2.20mm thick. I'll need to do a few tries with a stack of shims to get a feel for how much need to be grind off.

Ground the new spacer shim yesterday, seal arrived, so I can reassemble that lathe this week. With the forward bearing spacer shim ground to 2.14mm, I have about 0.012mm play in the bearing. This needs to be about 0.02mm, so I'll have to add another 0.02mm shim to increase it.

On Saturday, I plopped the top slide on the surface table to have a look at it. As expected, it has worn a bit hollow, so I started scrapping it.

Hi nice job you are making of getting your lathe into shape. I think it uses some of the same parts as my 5 LZ .Do you have the collet chuck . I only have part of mine and would like to make the missing parts Mike

I don't have a collet chuck, or do you mean collet closer for the 358E / W23 / A12 collets?

Yesterday I didn't feel like reassembling the spindle, so finished stripping the compound down to piece parts. It is in pretty good condition, except the paint which is almost completely gone, and an extra M12 threaded hole in the top slide.Mark

Sorry its the end cap of the collet closer that I am missing .My spindle is bored 4 MT and at the moment I use a er collet chuck in the spindle but it would be nice to get the proper collet up and running Mike

My spindle is din 3 and I can buy bison back plates from rotagrip .The lathe came with 3 and 4 jaw chuck and 1 spare back plate.The 3 jaw chuck is a Forkardt F125 chuck and a fantastic piece of kit , When I have a bit of time I will photograph it .Its the only 3 jaw chuck that I have ever seen where the jaws are reversable same as a 4 jaw chuck Does anyone have the retractable tool holder for screwcutting as i would like to know how they work ? Mike

That really was a special order spindle wasn't it. Din 3? Is it the short taper from Camlock, but clamped up with nuts on the rotating kidney slotted disc? I thought that was DIN 55021 Type B? Nice to have for sure. You really got lucky with this lathe.

Concerning the retracting tool holder, I would suggest you join the Boley subgroup in the CNCEcke.DE Forum, and ask there.http://www.cncecke.de/forum/group.php?groupid=11Mine came with the Boley 4 way tool post, but I use a Phase II AXA on it.

I have the original Klopfer 110mm three jaw, which is great with the outside jaws, but someone turned a step on the inside jaws. Good for thin parts, but hopeless of small diameter stuff now. I bought a replacement Klopfer 110mm marked "Weiler" hoping the jaws would be interchangeable, but they aren't, and the second chuck has more wear. Also picked up a low mileage Bison thin lightweight 125mm four jaw independent. Nice chuck. Unfortunately I currently only have one backing plate, so it is about time I get stuck in and make a dummy spindle nose gage with the M40x3.5 x 55° nose thread, and then make some more backing plates, face plate, catch plate etc.

Some pictures of head stock and chuck The scroll only moves just under 1/3 turn and then the jaws can be withdrawn , There is a detent to hold each jaw is place for location purposes The jaws can be fitted to different places in relation to each other .Each jaw can be independently reversedThere is a small button on the front of the chuck that comes out to indicate when the scroll is fully withdrawn and the jaws can be withdrawn Forkardt still make this chuck and when I have a few pennies I will buy a new set of jaws as at the moment I only have soft jaws but at £365 a set it will have to wait The chuck is rated at 4000 rpmA new chuck is eye wateringly expensive

I hate to think what that lathe would have sold for new. A standard 5LZ in 1970 had a list price of 70 000DM, which wasn't far of the price of an average house. Your special order spindle would have pushed that up a fair bit. does it have metric or imperial leadscrews? That would be a wonderful machine to restore.

Edit [Deleted the bit about the spindle]

Might be a good idea for posterity, and future 5LZ owners searching for info, to post all your photos on your 5LZ thread and I'll post the 4LV stuff in this one. There is not much info on either on the net, so it might be helpful to keep it sorted.

Yesterday I cleaned all the compound slide components. They are in very good condition with little wear. The lead screw and nut look as new. The castellated nuts haven't been mangled with a drift like all the other ones on this machine. Photos are still in the camera sorry.

Reassembled the spindle this weekend. It went smoothly, except I messed up on the back gear and had to pull it out and start again.

Once it was all back together I ran it for about an houe without any load, increaseing the speed along the way. Finally put the whole machine back together. I haven't finished scraping the topslide, as I still need to do the tapered surfaces, and clean up the top.

Just found this thread.What a beautiful lathe! Great restoration work!There are a couple of things that puzzle me:I don't understand how the chuck works or how it is operated. Can you explain that to me please? It looks like it would be 'swarf proof' - am I right?Secondly, I can work out how the tailstock works. It seems to have both lever and screw operation at the same time.... how is that done? Can you perhpas sketch the construction or show me a drawing?\Both very interesting!i have "built up" my lathe from an old special build (no maker's name) double ended connecting rod boring machine, using a Southbend tailstock and I would like to modify that to have more travel and maybe a handwheel (not lever), but I don't really want to loose option of the fine and forceful handwheel movement if required....Thanks for showing us your work!Alles Gute.Joe

Hi Joe, Sorry it is not a fancy mechanism. It is two separate tailstocks. The lever operated one has a collet nose, and collet drawbar. The regular tailstock has a #2 Morse nose, and also has provision for set over.

Please start a thread and post pictures of your lathe. It sound like an interesting one.

Along with the lever operated tailstock, and the lathe spindle, I also picked up an old shop made indexer which uses the same 358E W23 A12 collets. Very handy for making simple things like bolts with a hex or square to be milled. It can index 6, or 8 holes.

Yesterday I turned up a plug for scrap cast iron, threaded it to M12, and JB welded it into the hole someone had bored in the compound (probably for a Multifix QCTP). Let it harden over noght, and tonight I roughly milled it flat. Once I shape/grind or scrape the top flat, and get all the dings out, I hope it won't be too visible.Mark

I have three chucks, but only one back plate. My order of Meehanite arrived today. The plan is to make:

A 70mm back plate for the Bison 125mm Four jaw.Another 110mm back plate for the second 110mm three jaw.A 110mm catch plate to drive the dog when turn between centersA spindle thread protector for when I am using collets.

Turns out that drawing I posted of the spindle nose is incorrect. It shows 41.54mm over 2.38mm thread wires. I made 2.42mm thread wires, and my spindle is only measures 40.90mm with them. Martin from the CNCecke also confirmed that drawing is incorrect with thread wire on his spindle as well.

Today I cut the thread in the spindle guage. First ground up a 55° bit with 5° of top rake on the Clarkson. Set the top slide to 27.5° and zeroed it, scratched off on the work with the cross slide and zeroed it as well. From then on all cuts were make with the top slide.

I turned with the slowest back gear. 73RPM.

I made quite a few mistakes, so I'll have to make another one, but at least it shows the Boley can cut it's own spindle thread in Meehanite.

The mistakes:- I had the alignment boss spot on size, within a 0.0001" of the spindle's boss, and nicely polished with 600 grit sand paper. Thought I could improve the finish with 1000 and 2000 and went 0.0003" under. The alignment boss is 41mm h5 which only gives a tolerance of 0.0003" (11 micron). I need to get some metric micrometers. My 1-2" Starett also can't be trusted for absolute values, as zeroed on a 1" standard it's 0.0003" out on the 2" standard (or one of my standards is out). Still, it works fine for comparison measurements like this.

- Setting up, I slipped on the keyboard and did a G0 Z-41 instead of G0 Z-1, and put a thread into the alignment boss.

- In the middle I got impatient and tried a couple of cuts at 140rpm. I suspect that LinuxCNC accelerates at max rate for the axis when starting a G33 thread move, and then once at speed maintains sync. Speed variation during the threading are compensated for, but speed variation during acceleration aren't. Since the rotation angle travelled doubles during that acceleration with double the spindle speed, the thread then has a slightly different track. Need to pick a speed and stick to it for the whole thread.

- I started off doing 0.2mm infeed on the compound each cut. At about 0.8mm in, I had brain fade and infeed to 1.4 mm or so. Stalled out with a slipping spindle belt. Luckily it was early enough in the cut that most of the scars were cut out later.

- I dropped to 0.1mm infeed per cut at about 1mm, and to 0.05mm per cut at 2mm. Got impatient and tried 0.2mm when already at 2.2mm. Stalled again, but less harm down. Luckily did not lose sync, as LinuxCNC synced the Z stepper down to a stop following the spindle.- Didn't stop to measure often enough. Went to 3.30mm infeed. I cut the thread about 0.15mm too deep.

This one is a bit too small to be useful as a guage. A back plate cut to have a nice fit to this is probably still too tight for the real spindle.

Last time I thought about making a D1-3 adapter for the Boley's threaded spindle nose, I thought I worked out that there is not enough meat in the D1-3 to fit over the threads.

Just to make sure, I modelled it this time. Buggar, I was right. Since the cams only turn less than 180° from unlocked to locked, I guess I could still get in there and relieve the end of the CAMs leaving the retention lip only in the arc where it is actually needed.

Then again, once we start getting unrealistic, there is also the Hembrug on Richardo.ch for 950 buy it now...Mark

I was curious how much lower my tailstock is than center height. I turned up a brass slug to within 0.005mm of the 27.98mm tailstock ram diameter, and put a clock on it.

It is about 0.18mm (~7 thou) low when retracted, and quite level at about 0.03mm different along the length when fully extended when loose. It raises up 0.02mm when the ram lock is applied. Given the wear on the bed, this is not as bad as I feared. Sooner or later I'll have to have a shot at scrapping the bed.

It is still a nice old german machine. I was a single 1/100 over my finish cut to size that slug of brass, and at least on this lovely free cutting metal with a sharp HSS tool, taking another cut of 0.005mm on radius over a short distance cut cleanly, and left a perfect surface finish.Mark

I was showing my Boley fine feed adapter to a mate who also has a Boley 4L, and was embarassed how grimy it was. Time I gave it a thorough cleaning. It is in excellent condition, with no significant wear or damage.Mark